Methanol or E85 injection for fuel and cooling source?

Here's my idea(s) of what I'd like to do but not sure which would be more effective and help to produce more power. I have an '03 Cobra with a 3.4 Whipple with the stock I/C and a 5gal ice reservoir. I wanted to either continue to run E85 plus inject E85 in the plenum area (only at WOT) right before the blower to cool the IATs. Or Run Methanol and also inject Methanol as stated above. Either way I only want to run one fuel as both cooling and fuel. I don't want to run a separate methanol/water set up. My question is doing this would it be too corrosive to the blower? Would it cool more effectively? Does anyone have any solid numbers on using it to cool and as a fuel combined? I've seen old school blower guys with those 8-71 blowers on alcohol and their blowers are ice cold to the touch after a pass. So if it works for them why not me? Also food for thought here is if it would be effective when I build a shortblock I'm going to build it with a higher static compression to take more advantage of this if I end up using Methanol...Thoughts.....black2003cobra I'd like to hear your thoughts on this.

Anyone?....I searched but I didn't really find what I was looking for to see if my thinking is correct. I was also thinking about a spacer after the blower that I could plumb the e85 or M1 injection if that might yeild better results...

Injecting methanol through a positive displacement supercharger will not hurt the coating on the supercharger rotors and will definitely help with cooling. We do like to add water into the mix because water has a higher latent heat of vaporization and will absorb more heat than methanol alone. If injecting 100% methanol the air/fuel ratio will become very rich so you will have to tune a lot of fuel out of the vehicle’s fuel system to keep the air/fuel in line. Even injecting water/meth into an engine that uses E85 as its base fuel will help the engine run consistently because the inlet temps will always be cooler.

... Does anyone have any solid numbers on using it to cool and as a fuel combined? I've seen old school blower guys with those 8-71 blowers on alcohol and their blowers are ice cold to the touch after a pass. So if it works for them why not me? Also food for thought here is if it would be effective when I build a shortblock I'm going to build it with a higher static compression to take more advantage of this if I end up using Methanol...Thoughts.....black2003cobra I'd like to hear your thoughts on this.

Just saw your thread as I was prowling around the site Craig. I am one of those 'old school guys' you reference in the posting. We run a blown alcohol (methanol) engine with a hi-helix 14:71 blower. The fuel is injected in the hat (racer talk for what we would call the throttle body) just above the entry for the blower with eight nozzles. We also inject through the case at the rear of the blower with two more nozzles to cool the rotors and bearings at the rear. In addition to those ten nozzles we run eight (sometimes 16) more nozzles in the ports that are staged to come on essentially at launch.

The methanol will cause the injector hat (think throttle body) to literally ice up — so much so that we use a deicer similar to what the airlines use to de-ice planes in the winter. Despite the substantial cooling effect from the methanol the blower is still too hot to touch at the end of a run but it is much cooler than it would have been if we did not run methanol. How hot stuff gets is largely associated with how much manifold pressure you run. At 18 - 20 psi there is a heating effect but it is not the same as the heating effect you see at 50 psi manifold pressure. At 50 psi manifold pressure the equivalent of what we call IAT2 temps on a blown gas version of the engine would be over 400˚ the temps in the blown alcohol engine are down in the 160˚ area largely due to the cooling effect of the methanol.

When we inject it pre blower through the hat nozzles we chill the incoming air charge, cool the blower and use the liquid to help seal up the blower gaining some pumping efficiency. The way the 03/04 Cobra engines are built there is no provision for introducing the methanol pre-blower, although that can be corrected. The biggest reason not to introduce the fuel pre blower is the creation of a bomb.

The fuel and air mixture post blower and pre intake port is combustible. When there is a whoopse on our current engines there is nothing in the manifold to burn (explode) when you put a compressed charge of air and fuel in the intake manifold and introduce a whoopse it will blow the supercharger clean off the top of the engine and rip the hood off the car in the process. The destruction is impressive, in the extreme, on almost any automotive scale you wish to compare on.

Will the car perform better, possibly. It it worth the safety risk, I don't really think so. We use blower restraints, ballistic blower bags to contain shrapnel and multiple blow off panels to relieve the pressure and contain the pieces when the unintended whoopse comes to visit. Even with all those precautions and safety measures the damage is still beyond compare. I would not use an alcohol fuel, pre blower, for cooling or fuel metering. The potential for catastrophe is just too high.

If you really want to knock down the IAT2 temps use a dedicated Killer Chiller, a large (2 - 3 gallon) coolant reservoir and two pumps. One pump will continuously circulate the coolant exclusively between the Killer Chiller and the reservoir. The second pump will circulate the coolant exclusively between the coolant reservoir and the intercooler below the blower.

Do not use a heat exchanger. It will not cool the IC coolant it will increase the temperature of the coolant that has just left the Killer Chiller. The Killer Chiller will chill the IC fluid so low you will need to run antifreeze in it to prevent it from freezing solid. The impact on your IAT2 temps will be nothing short of stunning. At that point all that remains for you to attend to is routing cool ambient air to the air intake.

Flash point is defined as the minimum temperature at which the vapour pressure of a liquid is sufficient to form an ignitable mixture with air near the surface of the liquid, Bobby. Pure methanol has a flash point of 12°C (54°F).

Methanol is defined by the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) in the USA as a Class 1B flammable liquid. Solutions of methanol containing up to 74% water are classified by NFPA as flammable.

The popular misconception about diluting Methanol with water and eliminating the fire or flash hazard is the stuff of urban legend. The real world is different. This is a graph of the Flash points for gravimetric mixes of methanol and water from zero to 100% methanol.

As you can see fire is available virtually everywhere. Some places, like the low percentages (<30%), take more to ignite but they can be ignited also. Methanol is a great race fuel — just don't take it for granted, protect yourself because it is poisonous and don't buy into urban legend.

Hi guys, I'm new to the forum and this is one of the first posts I saw. I run a 2005 Mustang with a hellion turbo on meth+E85. I use the E-85 for its great characteristics (I live close to a station that has E-85) and the methanol because it cools the IATs wayyyyyyy more than the E-85. Also, If I ever get a bad batch of E-85 I'm always safe with the added methanol. People usually like to pick sides but I am not worried about detonation/heat what so ever running both.

With my experience 50/50 is NOT flammable. I have literally put a string in the tank pulled it out and tried to light it on fire with no luck at all. Also no problems while injecting (have been injection 50/50 for 3 years).

Don't bet against the National Fire Protection Association, Quickshift. They do not tell tall tales. Their data is laboratory tested and verified. Betting against it is like saying I have five chances out of six in winning at Russian Roulette. The killer is #6 — literally!